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NFL teams are in the midst of forming their 8-man practice squads, and while we wait for news on the 49ers squad, it looks like their Week 1 opponent is ready to get things going. Reports indicate the Green Bay Packers will sign former 49ers QB Scott Tolzien to their practice squad. The 49ers cut the former Wisconsin QB earlier this week in their move to 75 players.
Naturally, people are jumping on the theory that the Packers signed Tolzien to help them in their Week 1 matchup. That is certainly a reasonable inference, although I think the Wisconsin connection probably helped to some extent. Matt Maiocco put together a mailbag column this morning, and one of his answers had some useful insight into how this potentially impacts the 49ers-Packers Week 1 contest:
The team is not being presented with the game plan for Week 1 until this week. The first on-field practice is Tuesday ... Tolzien will not be able to give the Packers much insight into the specific 49ers plan against Green Bay. But the 49ers will have to change their verbal cues at the line of scrimmage to prevent the Packers from gaining a pre-snap advantage.
I'm sure the Packers coaches will have plenty of questions for Tolzien, but it seems unlikely that this should drastically impact the Week 1 matchup. The coaching staff has said during the preseason that the team was not focusing on the Packers until this week. I'm sure the coaching staff has been doing plenty of work on the Packers, but the team itself likely has focused on more general concepts and implementation. It can't hurt the Packers to sign Tolzien, but I'm not holding my breath that it will necessarily be a big problem for the 49ers.